The Standing Committee of the 9th National People's Congress (NPC), whose five-year term expired Tuesday following the first Presidium meeting of the First Session of the 10th NPC, has accomplished its historic mission of further promoting the rule of law in China.
As China's top legislative body, the 9th NPC Standing Committee has in the past five years deliberated and adopted a total of 113 laws, explanations of laws and decisions on certain legal problems.
"The 9th NPC Standing Committee has attained the goal it set for itself at the beginning of its five-year term: to initially build a Constitution-based socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics," said Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy director of the Law Committee under the NPC Standing Committee.
To guarantee the quality of newly-enacted laws, the 9th NPC Standing Committee has readjusted the law-making procedure, demanding at least three rounds of deliberation before a draft law could be adopted. Previously it took only two rounds of deliberation to complete a legislation.
According to Qiao, some important laws, such as the securities law and the contracts law, were deliberated for as many as five times before getting a final nod.
The Chinese Constitution also grants the NPC the supreme power of overseeing the enforcement of laws and supervising the work of governments, courts and procuratorates.
In five years, the NPC Standing Committee has carried out inspections on the enforcement of 22 laws and legal decisions, and has heard and deliberated 40 special topics work reports of the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. As of 2001, the NPC have also started to examine the budgets of 26 departments under the State Council.
The first presidium meeting of the First Session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) opens in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 4.
On the diplomatic front, the 9th NPC Standing Committee has received more than 440 parliamentary delegations from other countries over the past years, while the number of bilateral friendship panels and associations between the NPC and foreign parliaments has risen to 78 from the original 46.
"I was deeply impressed by the 9th NPC Standing Committee's substantial efforts for instituting a legal system compatible with the socialist market economy, as well as by the active supervisory role it has played," said Luo Yifeng, a veteran deputy to three consecutive NPCs.
"I hold that China's people's congress system has advanced a giant step forward during the five-year term of this NPC Standing Committee," Luo added.
(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2003)
